Good morning, everyone. A very warm welcome and thank you for joining myself, Matias Cardarelli, and members of the PPC executive team this morning. As an introduction, the executive team in the room includes Brenda Berlin, our Chief Financial Officer, Ernesto Acosta, our Chief Operations Officer, Pablo Marquez, our Chief Strategy Officer, Bheki Mthembu, our Chief Revenue Officer, and Kevin Ross, our Chief Legal and Compliance Officer. I would like to start by highlighting the context and key points relating to the very exciting announcement of a R3 billion best-in-class integrated new cement plant in the Western Cape. After six months of hard and comprehensive internal analysis, we are very happy to be able to share this relevant milestone in PPC's long history with the market and the country as a whole.
As I am most sure most of you would have read the SENS announcement by now, the team and I will be able to answer your questions at the end. Last November, at our FY25 half results presentation, I shared with you the three pillars of our Awaken the Giant strategy, namely addressing and fixing the gaps that we have identified in the company, the 10-year-old plan that we are already executing, and lastly, that we were looking at strategic opportunities and projects. This investment plan, naturally, is part of the last one, clearly enhancing PPC's competitive position in the years to come and consequently bringing equal value to customers and shareholders.
Following the signing of the strategic cooperation agreement with Sinoma Overseas in July last year, we have made progress on a number of initiatives that are in the pipeline, but the construction of a new state-of-the-art integrated cement plant in the Western Cape, of course, is by far the most strategic and transformative one so far. This is an exciting undertaking between the leading cement producer in South Africa and the leading manufacturer of cement plants in the world. This investment is also key to remain ahead of changing market dynamics. As I have consistently emphasized for the past year, South Africa's cement industry is undergoing rapid change, and the competitive landscape will look significantly different soon. It has been a misunderstanding for years that the problem of overcapacity in the country should be assessed as if all plants in the countries were the same. They are not.
Cement companies in the country which are not in the position to heavily invest in new technology to replace their current very old and inefficient plants will struggle to compete sustainably. It is important that we build a stronger and more efficient PPC through our operational business turnaround, but also through proper reinvestment to ensure our sustainability and value creation to shareholders in the years to come. This change in market dynamics urgently requires modern and cost-efficient assets, an environmentally conscious cement producer. The new fully integrated plant can produce over 1.5 million tons of cement per year and will replace and increase the existing capacity at our De Hoek and Riebeek plants. It is planned to be constructed on the Riebeek site, and so the key environmental approvals and mining rights have already been obtained.
The new plant will have the latest technology, resulting in substantial improvements in energy efficiency, reduced coal consumption, and lower emissions per ton of cement produced. We estimate that variable costs will be reduced by 20%-25%, carbon emissions will drop by 30%, and fixed costs will also decrease significantly by about 35%. This means producing the lowest carbon cement in South Africa at the most competitive price, driving both our profitability and sustainability. The plan to construct this new plant has not been taken lightly. Our internal assessment demonstrates robustly that the running of the new plant is significantly more value-accretive to PPC compared to running and maintaining the existing old technology that also would require CapEx to remain environmentally compliant, even at a scenario of no economy and infrastructure growth in the country.
As most of you know, PPC already currently runs the newest plant in the country, being a Slurry kiln line in the North West province, which serves the inland region. Jointly with our other relatively new Dwaalboom integrated plant and our grinding and blending facilities in Gauteng, PPC is positioned as the best company to sustainable supply and support our customers in Gauteng, North West, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga provinces. Now it was time to invest in the southern region of the country, which has not seen a significant cement investment in more than 40 years. The construction of the new plant in the Western Cape will position PPC even more competitively countrywide for the benefit of its shareholders and customers. We are confident that the new plant investment can be funded from debt facilitated within its current two times net debt to EBITDA covenant.
It is important to note that the full R3 billion investment will not be required upfront, as a milestone-based payment structure has been agreed with Sinoma. We will obviously continually evaluate liquidity to ensure PPC retains a strong and sustainable capital structure over the project period and beyond. Robust analysis to date gives the management team and I the confidence that the new plants meet all PPC capital allocation criteria, and the return on investment on this project will be greater than our WACC. The feasibility studies for the plant have reached an advanced stage. However, over the next three months, the parties will now need to finalize the details of the project and the associated turnkey engineering, procurement, and construction EPC agreements.
Subject to final board approval, it is anticipated that the construction of the new plant will start in the second quarter of this year and will be commissioned by the end of calendar year 2026. The existing plants in the Western Cape will continue to operate during the construction and commissioning process, thereby providing financial support and a smooth transition. Thank you for being with us on such an important day for PPC. We can now open the door for questions.
Good afternoon. Please, can you post your questions? We do have one question already, but if you have further questions, if I can ask you to post them. The first question is from Anthony Clark, and I know you've covered some of these points, but I think it's important that we just reiterate. In light of the overcapacity in the South African cement sector, how can an investment in a new R3 billion cement plant and the associated CapEx and costs of other plant closures be good for PPC?
Hello, Anthony. How are you? Happy New Year for you. Thank you for always being so active in the sector and with PPC. Respectfully, Anthony, I think that has been a misunderstanding for years already in the country, evaluating the problem of the overcapacity in the country. Partially, I think that the reason of this is that the cement leaders in the country have misguided the public in terms of how to address the overcapacity problem in the country. When we talk about overcapacity, and we understand by that that all the plants and all the capacity in the country is the same, that is a big mistake. It's not the same to run a 40-year-old plant very inefficient than to run a 10-year-old plant, a 5-year-old plant, and of course, not the same to run this new state-of-the-art plant that we are going to build.
So the problem of overcapacity could not be assessed like all capacity is the same and all plants are the same than new plants because the variable cost and the fixed cost of producing in an old, inefficient plant is not the same than producing in a new, modern plant. During the last half result announcement, someone asked me if we should be concerned about the West China Dugongo plant in Mozambique. If all capacity would be the same, why should anyone in South Africa concern? But the question was a good question because Dugongo, West China plant in Mozambique, produces cement at a variable cost of around $25-$30, while some cement producers in the country produce cement, their variable cost probably is close to the double of that.
So, Anthony, I think it's very important, my view and respectfully, that we start to understand that the cement environment in South Africa and in the region is changing. Chinese new players are coming, and they are bringing the latest technology to the region. Those plants are going to be run in a very low-cost and efficient way. So, personally, I believe that could be a mistake to continue comparing old capacity with new efficient capacity. So what I'm trying to say here, and I have just mentioned it, companies in South Africa and in the region who are not ready to invest, who do not have a healthy debt balance sheet, they are going to struggle. Cement is a cost business, first of all.
So if you are going to produce your ton of cement at half of the cost of a competitor, this is not the same capacity problem. I would say the contrary. It's a huge competitive advantage for the ones who are going to be able to produce low-cost cement and being environmentally conscious as well. So, Anthony, thank you very much for your question, but I do believe that, and I have been saying this for already more than one year. I kindly suggest analysts and investors to start to try to dig deeper and to understand what is happening in the market and how competitive in terms of cost the South African market will be moving forward. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We have a number of questions, and I'm going to just read them off, and I'll take them one by one. Can you elaborate a bit more on the rapid change you see coming for the industry? That's from Elham Ismail at M&G Investments.
Yeah, I think I have just addressed it. I mean, the whole region is seeing Chinese investment coming, which are bringing new technology and most efficient plants. The new competitors in the region are going to operate like what's happening in most of the markets around the world in cement, that the most efficient low-cost companies are the ones who are going to prevail and the ones who are not able to manage costs because they have old assets or inefficient teams are going to struggle. So this is what is coming already in the market, and this is what I think that the narrative regarding the cement business in the country for the past year has been misguided.
The reason why we are making this move, it is, of course, it is an offensive one in terms of that we are looking to, by bringing new technology to the Western Cape, Northern Cape, and Eastern Cape region, we are looking at expanding our footprint and regaining market share by being able to deliver to our customers by far the most competitive value proposition in the sector. But also, it's a defensive move because as old-timer cement executives, and I'm looking now around the table, probably there's more than 60 years or no, sorry, 80 years' experience in cement around this table now, we have been able to see what was coming and preparing PPC for that different competitive environment that is already starting in the country and in the region.
Thank you. Next question is from Luke Bredenkamp at Prima Research. Good afternoon, team. What is the LOM of the existing lime source in the Western Cape, and will a new lime mine be secured to supply the new plant?
Yeah, Anthony, I'm sorry, you can take that.
Good afternoon. Thank you for the question. Our existing and current deposit, limestone deposit in Riebeek plant would allow us for more than 80 years of the current life of mine to serve the new plant that is under board approval. Yeah.
So, Luke, good morning. I take the opportunity to also say Happy New Year to you. I think we have more than limestone needed for quite a very long time.
Thank you. Next question is from M&G, from Elham again. Can you comment on the age of the two plants that will be shut down?
The age of the plants? Yeah. Those plants have. One has 60 years old, and the other one has 40 years old.
Next question from Dylan Griffiths at Foord Asset Management. Could we get an indication as to how much of the 1.5 megatons is new?
Million tons.
Million tons is new or expansion supply, and what is replacement volume?
I think in terms of capacity, it's a replacement. The current two old plants could produce approximately 1.4 million tons, between 1.4 and 1.5 million tons. They are able technically to produce that by running three clinker kilns and four cement mills. With the new plant, we were looking at running only one kiln, one cement, and depending on our product mix, we will be able to produce 1.5-1.7 million tons of cement per year. In terms of market, actual production, we are nowadays around a little bit more than 1 million tons of cement produced in the southern region of the country.
We strongly believe that, again, by this very distinctive value proposition that we'll be able to offer to the customers relatively soon, we were able to recover market share that PPC has been losing for many years, and we were able to improve and push our volumes close to the plant capacity after some time.
Thanks. The next question is from Peter Kromberg at Mergermarket. Could you please outline potential funding structures for the new plant? Will PPC raise new debt or use existing or undrawn facilities?
Brenda?
Hello, Peter. I'll take that. Good morning. Peter, the funding structures are very, very strong. Preference is to do the following. We will use debt. We don't intend to use equity. Our share price is undervalued, and it is the most expensive form of equity. We believe that debt facilities, we have sufficient capacity in debt facilities given our EBITDA to be able to increase those facilities very easily and maintain a two-times covenant net debt to EBITDA. So it will be debt funded at that conservative level of gearing.
Thanks. Brenda, while we're with you, I've got another question that's specifically being asked of you from Luke at Prima again. I don't know if you've run the numbers yet, but will the dividend or dividend policy be affected by the construction of a new plant, i.e., will the interim dividend be used to service debt, or do you forecast sufficient cash flow to continue to pay the pass-through dividend?
Luke, good morning to you too. We have run the numbers, and suffice to say, we're very confident in the outcome, but we do need to fine-tune over the next three months as the technical guys complete their work as well. We don't intend to change our dividend policy. However, to maintain the flow-through of the ZIM dividend, and we have appetite to do that, will entail an internal policy change of increasing our target debt level relative to EBITDA. As you remember, it's currently between 1.3-1.5 times, and management and the board will consider increasing that to enable dividends to be maintained through the construction and commissioning process.
Thanks. The next question is from Andrew Bishop at Excelsior Capital. Why did you choose the Riebeek site relative to De Hoek?
The easy question is because the limestone quality at Riebeek is much better than De Hoek, and also we have a much longer reserve there than in De Hoek.
Thanks. The next question from Elham at M&G. Would you be able to comment on competitive dynamics in the Western Cape? Is this an area that has been competitive and where you lost market share in recent years?
Probably the Western Cape is not as competitive as how it came in Mpumalanga because most of the investment done by PPC in 2019 and around 2012, 2013 from Mamba and Sephaku have all been done in what we call the inland region. So the Western Cape has been less competitive, of course. We see a couple of local competitors bringing cement there, but from long distance, from plants that they are really far from the Western Cape. And we have seen the imports coming from Vietnam also to the Western Cape. Finally, we have a cement producer, a grinding station, not an integrated plant, who produce cement by importing cement from their Port Elizabeth plant and bring some cement to the Western Cape. So this would be more or less the current analysis of the competitiveness in the Western Cape.
And as I mentioned, we are 100% confident that by running this new, very, very efficient and low-cost plant, we were able to bring to our customers in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and Northern Cape an unbeatable value proposition moving forward.
Next question from Rajay Ambekar from Excelsior Capital. What is the expected return on the R3 billion investment over and above the profits currently being generated?
Rajay, I'll take that, I'm sorry.
Yes, please, Brenda.
Rajay, we always look at the return on a standalone basis. And if I understand your question correctly, you're saying, do we meet our return on investment capital criteria for the standalone project? So if I understand that correctly, the answer is yes, we do. We measure the return on investment capital in the first year of steady state, and based on those analyses, that capital allocation criteria is met.
Thanks. The next question from Paul Whitburn at Rozendal Partners. It looks like he's got a couple of questions. I'm going to read them both out.
Okay.
What do you think the capacity utilization is for the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and Northern Cape for the industry? Is it very different to the countrywide utilization? And then the second question, I'll give you time to think about that. What do you think the market share of PPC would be in these provinces?
I think capacity in the Western Cape is different to the rest of the country because you don't have any other integrated plant than the two integrated plants that currently PPC have. So I don't know if I understand fully the question, but the reason why we are replacing these two old, 40 years old and 60-year-old plants for a new plant, I have already elaborated that.
Yes, you have.
We don't make comments in terms of market share because I think that is sensitive commercial information.
And he's just added, how competitive are you compared to these imports with the new plant, with imports that are coming in?
We will be extremely competitive against imports. We were going to be able to produce at least at similar variable costs that what Vietnamese and other, well, basically Vietnamese producers are able to produce, so the whole cost of bringing cement from Vietnam to South Africa would mean it's a big competitive for us, and let's clarify something that I think is important. Regarding the one million tons of cement that comes every year to the country, mainly from Vietnam, only between 10% and 15% go to the Western Cape. Now, the rest go to the rest of the country through the Durban Port, but in terms of competitiveness, the new plant will be way, way more competitive than any other local or international competitor.
Thank you. I think we've just got two more questions. So the second last one is from Brent Pyle at Avior. Afternoon, and thanks for being available for this call. Please, could you elaborate on the partnership details? Specifically, please provide clarity on whether you maintain a 100% equity stake in the new plant or does Sinoma take an equity stake?
Oh, thank you very much for the question. No, no. It's 100% ownership for PPC. Sinoma Overseas is the leading equipment and service and engineering company in the world. We are not planning. I mean, this plant is going to be 100% PPC one. Sinoma is the builder of the cement plant. And in terms of our partnership, we believe that it's extremely and strategically important for PPC. This is the first example. When I came to PPC, of course, this project of building a new plant was already there here in PPC, but the cost was the double. The estimated cost was the double of the cost of what we are getting now due to the work we have done with Sinoma for the past six months.
And of course, we are looking at more synergies and opportunities with Sinoma in the future for them and for us cooperating and bringing more efficiencies and more opportunities for PPC moving forward. So the strategic alliance with Sinoma, what we are seeing now, is just the beginning.
Okay, so I actually do have one more question after this, but let me go with the previous one. Andrew Barton, who's a private investor, asks: Apologies. I know I'm late, but is there a value of carbon tax savings that this new plant will save PPC?
In terms of economic value, I mean, there is no because the country still doesn't have, no? But I mean, we are going to produce a low well, yes, sorry. I was answering wrong. Of course, this will mean that we are going to pay less carbon tax. I mean, of course, from a financial economic point of view, we are going to pay less carbon tax because this is going to be the lowest carbon-content cement in the country, I would say by far. So we are going to pay lower carbon tax. I thought that the question was about government and incentives. But I mean, in terms of purely carbon tax payment, of course, will have an important and positive impact for us.
Anthony Clark, Small Talk Daily. I've just come back from the Switzerland and past De Hoek and Riebeek West. Can I ask, will employees at both sites be integrated to keep the authorities happy and have there be consultation regarding the new plant, EIA and community given the locality of the Riebeek plant?
Antonio, I mean, we are going to work in the next two years. Remember that this is a two-year project, and for the time being, we are not having any impact in our plant's workforce because we are going to run these two plants for the next two years when the project materializes. During that period, we are going to make a comprehensive analysis in terms of which needs we have, in terms of headcount and manpower once the plant is ready. Of course, we have very experienced and knowledgeable employees in the Western Cape, and the idea no, they will be the ones who are going to run the new plant once we start.
I do have one more question here. John Marks, CP Capital. Which year or how many years do you expect to achieve steady-state production, and what are you terming as steady-state volume output?
Oh, it's not going to be years. It's going to be a few months, but you can take it and let's go from there.
Okay. Thank you for the question. Usually, the start-up period of a new facility takes between around six months. We do expect. I have an experience in Paraguay starting up a Sinoma plant with the full team without any experience in cement, which is, of course, not our case in PPC, and it takes around eight to nine months to run and to reach the rate capacity and all the warranty tests, so we really expect that will be under six months.
Thank you. I think we answered the question on the dividends, and so I think we are through all of the questions. Thank you very much. I don't know if you want to give any closing remarks?
No, I would like to thank you all that participate in this call. As you can imagine, this is a historic day for PPC. This project has been in the pipeline in PPC for, I would say, decades. And we are very proud that we are able to bring this project that represents a big opportunity for our business and a big opportunity for our shareholders, customers, and employees. So thank you very much for being with us this day and looking forward to continue engaging with you in the future. Thank you very much.